> > 1. Romanian 'trei' :
> > - also with its form 'tri'
<tri> is misleading: there, where Romanian native speakers
use this variant (IMHO more than 50% of the population), the
real pronunciation always contain a diphtong: [trij] (or [triy]).
Which is naturally closed to <trei> [trej].
I.e., this regional <triy> has to be pronounced differently
from the prefix <tri->, e.g. <tridimensional, trigonometrie>.
But, although the current Romanian writing is quite a...
phonetic one, it isn't able to render the [ij] diphtong. An
awkward rendition is there in certain cases, by the double
"i" writing (e.g.. plural endings, and plural endings plus
the definite article). Up to circa 1900 there was a graphical
rendition of the diphtong (an "i" + an "i" with a different
diacritical sign), but it was abandoned. The consequence is
that most of Romanian native-speakers have difficulties in
correctly writing words that contain these 3 kind of "i"-s:
[i], the... "aspired" [i] that's no [i] at all (extant in that
weird, typically Romanian plural ending, esp. for the
masculine), and the diphtong [ij] which many people don't
even perceive as a diphtong, and must be... taught in school
that it is a diphtong and not the simple [i]. (Of course,
during the time period when Romanians used their own
Cyrilic alphabet, there were no such reading/writing
problems because of the usage of more appropriate fonts.)
George